Airport gets loan, grant for new hangar, taxiway

On several occasions, Gothenburg’s Airport Authority has tried to obtain grants and interest-free loans from the Department of Aeronautics.

To no avail.

Last Friday, airport authority chair Craig Bartruff traveled to Lincoln to ask aeronautics commissioners for help to build a six-stall, 9,420 square-foot hangar.

After his plea to the five-person panel, airport authority secretary Roger Donner said Bartruff was told that Gothenburg would not only receive a $224,000 interest-free loan for the hangar but also a $45,000 grant to install a new taxiway.

“I guess we had all of our ducks in a row,” Donner said.

Since the estimated price for the hangar—which includes costs for engineering, concrete, seeding, etc.—is $320,000, he said the authority will obtain a conventional $96,000 loan.

Included in the project price is an estimated $50,000 cost for the taxiway on the west side of the new hangar. The grant is for $45,000 which means the authority will need to get another loan for $5,000.

Donner said an increase in requests for hangar space is what prompted the authority to ask for help.

“There’s a waiting list for people looking for space to store their planes,” he said, noting that there’s a privately owned hangar as well as three other buildings to store planes that are owned by the airport authority. “Requests have been showing up the last couple of years.”

In the past, Donner said he thinks aeronautics commissioners have turned down requests for grants and loans to small airports located near larger ones.

Gothenburg is between Cozad and North Platte which also have airports.

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